Mothers Tears
by Pyrefangs
Summary: No Mother could resist shedding tears for the children she has lost. Previously 'No Power', see Author's Bio for more information.
1. Prologue

**Mothers Tears**

_**Prologue**_

Authors Note: Hello . It's me again. It's been a long damn five years hasn't it? Well… I'd like to hope that my writing has improved… as has this story. I am fully reposting it. As of my post of chapter one in one week, I will be taking No Power down from . This story will eventually contain (tasteful) smut, though it will be a long time in the future. When it happens, naturally… you will be able to read it elsewhere. For now… I hope you enjoy this new version of the old story. It's much more planned out, more slow in its movement, and I hope perhaps makes more sense? Reviews are welcome; however flames are not and will be deleted.

Disclaimer: The characters, places and things of the Labyrinth universe do not belong to me.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

"Father…" A soft voice which sounded like the tinkling of many bells filled the silence of the evening. "Tell me a story…"

A deep chuckle sounded in answer before a reply was voiced. "Alright my child, I will tell you a story… a story of love, and of jealousy." Strong arms circled a small frame as the pair, father and child, settled back onto an over-large bed. They sat nestled together in pillows and warmth as the father spoke once more. "I will tell you of a world much like ours."

"And the goblin king?" The little voice grew excited.

"That's right, child." There was a pause as the father kissed his Childs forehead. "As you well know, all stories must have a beginning… and this story begins… with darkness."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

All worlds begin in darkness, and this world is no different.

There are some who say that the world was created from a single tear, shed by a goddess who cried over her lost children. Others say the world was carved from stone by a god protecting what he cherished most. In truth… both are true, yet not fully correct.

The world of which this history speaks is not Earth. It came from the Earth, yes. But it is another world. Mirror to Earth… earth in mirrors. Another world which exists in reflection… in dreams… in story, and in the hearts and souls of each and every child who sits upon a father's knee.

It is in fact through the children that this world in mirror exists to this day… and through children that it could be destroyed.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

It was in the dawn of time, when the earth was but a fledgling bird standing on the precipice of a nest before its first flight, which this world of magic began.

A woman walked alone across the earth. She was the mother of all life, and all of creation looked upon her and worshiped her beauty and love. She was the most beloved as there was not a single soul who could not help but to love her, simply by gazing upon her face.

It was through her, the mother, that not only life… not only love… but jealousy was born.

Jealousy came to the earth in the form of a flame which flickered hotly in the eyes of the god who created all. The father who breathed life into the wishes of his mate, the mother. He resided within the sun, giving constant light to the earth below. Ever watching… ever waiting.

Jealousy watched as the mother was loved and worshiped, and it grew within the father until bubbling into an all-consuming rage which threatened to end all life.

And so the mother was locked away from her children, by the jealous father who sought to have her all to himself. Her prison was the night sky, and the cage in which she resided, the moon. She was cast into the night with the hopes that her grace and beauty would be forgotten, and worship and praise would be given to the father, the flame of life. The father believed all would convert to his wishes, for there was no life in the night… only darkness and cold.

As his actions were so hasty and ill thought out, the father did not see his mistake until it was too late to stop it.

The children of the earth were created with free thought and were not so easily swayed from the mother they loved. She was not so easily forgotten. Every night she walked the skies as the moon, a beacon in the darkness.

She became the light of the night, chasing away fears so her children could live in peace. All who gazed upon the mother in her cage could see her beauty still shined out, and she was loved and worshiped by all.

Jealousy, like devotion, was not so easily stamped out either… and in time once more the father lashed out against his children, like a raging inferno. This time it was creation who suffered his wrath. Every child who clung to the night and continued to love the mother moon, found themselves cast into an abyss of darkness. Cast into a place where even the fingers of the moon, rays of light in the void, could not reach them.

It was then that the first goblins were born. Twisted creatures, shaped from cruelty and jealousy. Alone in the darkness, the goblins suffered. They had no sun to guide them, no moon to wrap loving light around them. No mothers caring touch.

The mother was finally alone in her prison in the night sky, trapped in the endless void of nothingness. And in her solitude, she wept. Her tears fell to the world, striking the darkness where her children had been locked away.

Tears shaped the world that the father had created to hold all those who sparked his ire. Protection was given to those poor twisted creatures who still knew only love for their mother moon.

Though she could not be with them, she still shed tears for them, for what mother does not cry over children who are lost to her? Each tear held a single wish… a wish for light… laughter… life… All the mother's love rained down onto the mirrors of earth, absorbing and shaping the new world.

It was from those tears the Underground was born. A new world which once was filled with only horror, now held hope and peace. But as all things do… the creation of this world came at a price.

All of the mother's magic… all of her life was spent as her last tear fell. Without her tears… the moon was just the moon… and the mother goddess was no more.

From that final tear was born a creature of pure light. The mother's one true son. Through her final wish, he would become a king to the goblins. He would rule over the Underground. Mold and protect all those who served him, since the mother could not.

It was through him that over a millennia of happiness and life was given to the Underground. Through him all of the land thrived… and in the end… through him that it would suffer the most.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

As the magic settled and the Labyrinth grew, a new dawn greeted the fledgling world, and a pair of mis-matched eyes opened to greet the morning with open arms and a magical song.


	2. Chapter One

**Mothers Tears**

_**Chapter One - Finale**_

Authors Note: Time for Chapter One! With this posting, I'm removing the "No Power" version from . To all of you who had it alerting you, I'm sorry but you'll have to transfer that over to this one. I would do a note to alert my readers but it's against rules or something IDK. I guess I'm just really sorry... I hope this re-write is met with love from everybody who was reading before. One more warning though: I accept constructive criticism, but no angry flames or crap.

To my Beta: Roze13, you are a gem!

Disclaimer: The characters, places and things of the Labyrinth universe do not belong to me.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Time is perception. It is the organization, identification and interpretation of the sights and smells around one self, to determine how changes in the world are caused by the changes of environment as each moment passes by. Spring… Summer… Fall… Winter. Birth… Growth… Death. All things are measured in time and time is measured different for each who pause to reflect on it.

The second hand of a clock ticks backward, before a simple blink causes it to resume a forward motion. A tree blooms in the dead of winter, only to shed its leaves the very next day. Seconds seem to last for hours, while hours will go by in what seem like seconds.

On earth, Time, no matter how it is perceived, is an ever steady entity. Seconds… minutes… hours. Time continues on with an ever constant ticking. Like the ancient grandfather clock which sat for generations in a home's front hall.

_Tick… Tick… Tick…_

Steady as a heartbeat. Never faltering, never stopping, and never going back. Time flows on.

Humans' lives are linear. They are born, they live, and they die. Nothing in this cycle ever changes except the way that a human's life on earth is perceived. Since the very beginning, time on earth has marched ever forward towards its eventual end. It may be tomorrow, a week forward… years even before it happens. So long as it remains unknown, time on earth will continue on one day at a time.

In the Underground, time is a rhythm. Time flows with a constant beat of thirteen.

_One-Two-Three… One-Two-Three... One-Two-Three… One-Two… One-Two…_

There are no seconds, no minutes. Only hours. For each day, thirteen hours. Each night, the same. Flowing forever in a march… a beat… a tone.

After each thirteen bars of the music of time, the melody changes. There is a birth, and a death. The Underground thrives and adapts. Through changing, the music will continue on.

Since the beginning of the Underground, as told in history, the world of Goblins remains ever connected with the earth from which it was spawned. Both worlds are so alike… and yet still so very different. For each of the Undergrounds two thirteen hour cycles which pass, a decade will pass on Earth. Because of the Labyrinth, the two worlds are intertwined and will remain so until the end of all things.

Time will pass, continuing ever forward. Be it a second or a single drum beat. For Earth and for the Underground… Time continues on.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

_"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City. For my will is as strong as yours. And my – "_

**"Stop. Wait. Look Sarah… - Look at what I'm offering you… your dreams…"**

_"And my Kingdom as great."_

**"I ask for so little… just let me rule you, and you can have everything that you want."**

_"And my Kingdom as great… Damn! I can never remember that line!"_

**"Just fear me… Love me… Do as I say and I will be your slave!"**

_"My Kingdom as great… my Kingdom as great…"_

**_"You have no power over me!"_**

In that instant time in the Underground stopped. Magic erupted from the Labyrinth and started to bleed away at a rapid rate. With those six little words, the life of the Labyrinth flowed out in rivers into a crumbling void until all that was left was a single spark enclosed within a crystal. One final tear shed by the Mother and preserved for the end of days. The magic was undone by a frightened human girl. Time shattered. The Labyrinth was dying.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

The one true son of the Mother had come to be known by many names since his magical birth. Goblin King, Ruler of the Labyrinth, Heartless lover of the Underground, Master of Music. But now, with all magic stripped from him as he knelt surrounded in ruin, he was only Jareth.

All around him gathered a faceless multitude. Once his subjects, the Goblins of the Underground stood by as his accusers. They screamed for retribution, but were met with only deaf ears. What justice could be given to a people whose world was dying? How could they be saved by a ruler who was broken?

The chaos and sound was so loud that when it all suddenly cut off, Jareth almost believed that his hearing had failed him. He slowly looked up to find that the noise had been stopped by a prism of light formed which had suddenly formed around him. He pushed to his feet, his mind attempting to puzzle out the issue. Had it been his own magic that caused this? Coming to his aid before the madness of his subjects consumed him?

But it was soon clear that it was not his own magic but something much different. Chains of light burst from each side of the prism, sealing around jareth's arms and legs, holding him in place in the center of the surrounding walls of light. Jareth struggles against these bonds, looking about for a source of this strange magic, but all he could see past the edges of the prism was a void of blackness.

** "Your eyes are blinded past the walls of your prism, son of the moon."**

A voice boomed out, and Jareth had a difficult time telling if the voice came from within his own head, or he heard it in the silence around him. The voice was full of power, something Jareth had never heard from any save himself. He whips his head to the side and stares wildly around him. "Who are you to chain me like a dog?!" Jareth shouts out, anger and arrogance in his voice.

** "Who are you to question me, boy?"**

Jareth looks behind him, attempting to lock onto the source of the voice which filled him with a sudden terror. "Who are you?" He looks this way and that, pulling at his bonds. "Tell me!"

** "Names are irrelevant, boy."**

Jareth turns each moment the voice sounds, eyes wide with fear, "You know me, but I do not know you! How dare you capture me in my own land?!"

** "Fool! You believe yourself the ruler of this land? You have reduced it to nothingness! You are the ruler of nothing! Blackness! Rubble! You are nothing!"**

Jareth pulls against his bonds, struggling to remain on his feet. "I would look upon my captors! I have the right!"

** "Rights?! You will look upon your death!"**

The prism of light recedes and shadows move to fill the space the light had held. Jareth stood alone in the blackness, still chained in place. From the shadows, a figure steps forward. It was a masculine figure, clothed in robes of red and orange jewels. A crown of bright hair flowed down the man's back. He stands before Jareth, reaching out and cupping his chin. "So much like your mother…" His voice softens, no longer filled with power.

Jareth jerks his chin to the side, looking defiant. "Who are you? Who gives you the right to hold me here?"

"I have many names. From the beginning of time however I was known simply as… death." The man lets Jareth go and steps back. "You should never have been created. But her wishes were strong." He looks up into the sky where the blackness of the void had been pushed back as the moon appeared in the sky. "The Mother always gets what she wants…"

Jareth looks up in surprise, then sinks to his knees and lets his head drop forward. "She has come to punish me?"

"No, fool… she does not punish. She only loves." Death folds his arms. "You fell in love, Jareth. An emotion a creature such as you was never meant to know. "

A strange emotion fills Jareth as he weakly tugs once at his bonds. "How can you say such things when by your word it was love that created me? A love for the creatures of this world? I am not ignorant of my own purpose…"

Death gives a harsh laugh. "No. You are not meant to love. That is a human flaw. One which has no purpose in this world. One which has been burned from the Goblins you rule over. Nothing so ugly deserves to know love!" He takes a few steps back. "When she put you on this world, your heart was locked away. Locked so deep inside. You were never to fall in love. Never to have compassion. You were to live alone… be alone! Love has corrupted you! "

Jareth looks up at Death, frowning almost sadly, "Is love even unknown to you?"

A bright flash of light flares, near blinding Jareth as Death explodes and vanishes. His voice fills the space around again, full of anger and power.

** "I do not love! I am to be loved! I deserve to be loved. I deserve to be feared! I gave you life and I can take it away!"**

The light grew in intensity until Jareth's skin started to bubble and scorch from the heat. It was like he was hovering close to the very sun itself. He had never known pain before, it was new to him. And this pain seemed to permeate his very bones. He screams in agony, thrashing from the chains as he attempted to escape the pain.

** "Like all of her little creations, you are flawed! You will not be left to live a day longer!"**

The heat grew and grew, causing the chains to melt and pool around him, the molten metal only causing his skin to burn worse. Jareth slumps to the side, unable to even scream any longer. His hair singes and vanishes in the scorching burn. His skin melts and blackness fills his vision as his life gives out at last.

~.~.~.~.~.~

A soft lullaby fills the silence which surrounded the man who drifted slowly in a pool of rippling water. In the moonlight he floated, eyes closed, hands folded over his chest.

Above the pool, a woman sat in a cage of light. Her face was held in her hands as she cried, her tears falling and hitting the water below to ripple and vanish beneath the surface. The song came from her, never faltering even though she continued to cry.

** "Wake up child… come back to me. I will send you to a place to start over. You do not deserve his anger. You do not deserve his wrath. Wake up my son. Your love is beautiful. It is what I always wanted for my children. Embrace it. Go to her. So long as you live, he cannot corrupt my children. Wake my son. Live on Earth. I will send another to watch over those whom I love. Live, Jareth. Your heart is your own to control."**

The man's body slowly sank into the water as light wrapped around him and pulled his body from the world, sending him with a magical speed to the first world.

~.~.~.~.~

Sarah was stuck with another double shift at the hospital. Everything was so dead that she was just sitting in her office, staring at the bagel and coffee in front of her with lifeless eyes. Had her life gotten so mundane that the highlight of her day was a stale bagel and some burnt coffee?

She reaches up and pushes chunk of dark hair behind one ear, then idly ponders her mug, staring into the liquid as though expecting something to appear there, to rescue her from this boring life. "Best heart surgeon in all of England and my life is still boring." She sighs, and then picks the mug up to take a sip.

Before the liquid could touch her lips, the intercom on her desk blares to life and a voice pipes through in an annoyingly high-pitched tone, "Doctor Williams to O.R.-1! Doctor Williams… O.R.-1."

Sarah sets the mug back down and sighs. "And life continues." She stands and snags up her coat then, leaving her office at a jog. She heads up three levels to the surgery floor, having a passing thought about getting her office just moved up there, then pushes into the scrub room aside the O.R. "I'm here!"

Inside the scrub room, a nurse stood waiting. As soon as Sarah cleared the door, she launched into an explanation of the patient. "Male, approximately thirty years old, side impact from a speeding truck. Left side; collar bone clean break, humerus clean break, wrist and hand is shattered." She paused, assisting Sarah with the scrub in. "Left hip was dislocated, left knee dislocated, left femur clean break, right tibia splintered in two places."

Sarah raised an eyebrow, looking through the window at the broken man on the table. "Bloody hell…" She put her last glove on and shrugged into a gown. "Is there anything else I should know?" She glanced through the window into the room, frowning at the patient laid out on the table. His long blond hair was sticky with dried blood, tubes stuck from here and there, obstructing her views of his features. She tilts her head this way and that, frowning a little as she pondered the case.

The nurse took a breath and nodded, "Left side four broken ribs, two of which punctured his lung. Right side two broken ribs, lung is fine. Several cuts into the left ventricle." She paused. "Chest cavity is full of fluid, and he's currently on life support. We've diverted blood flow out of his left ventricle. Also, Doctor Crowler's in with an assistant dealing with the Ortho, the rest is up to you."

"Right." Sarah nodded and pushed through the doors into the room. She moved quickly to the side of the table and took a quick look at the man. "Okay, I've got to know. How did this poor man survive an injury like this with no head trauma?" She pointed at one of the nurses in the room. "My preferred please."

The other doctor in the room shot Sarah a smile from his position as classical music filled the room. "That can be explained in the shattered hand, he protected himself with his right arm after the first impact to his left side, and the hand took a full hit when he landed." Though he spoke, he did not look up from his work on the patient's knee.

"Poor man..." Sarah made short time of cutting open the man's chest and went to work with the initial damage. "It's like a broken vase in here." She looked at the man's face, shaking her head. "I hope it's something very important that keeps you breathing."

Modern medicine aside, Sarah knew this would be a fight for this man's life, whoever he was. Time seemed to freeze in Sarah's mind as she worked extract and fix each shattered rib piece. The music in the background only kept her lost in her work. She was in the zone, this was where she lived… here… saving lives.

The hours passed slowly, the work tedious. Sarah didn't mind though, the slowly steady pulse of the machines all the white noise she needed to concentrate on her work. There was some talk between her and the other doctor in the room, though Sarah's heart wasn't really in their normal casual flirting and playful banter. For some reason her heart bled for this man, something about him called to her to give him her full attention and work.

Things had come far in hospitals over the years. Gone were barbaric practices of old. Sarah had always been fascinated by the leaps that medicine had made. She found herself musing, while she worked, what a procedure like this would have been like even ten years ago. This man most likely would have been dead on arrival.

She was applying the final laser stitch to the man's heart when the alarms started going off, snapping her back into focus.

"He's flat lining!" One of the nurses shot away from the table, retrieving the crash panel.

Sarah took the panel and clicked out the stand, settling it over the patient's chest and turning it on. A hologram pushed down from the panel into the man's chest and layered over his own heart. Sarah quickly spins the knobs then sends a jolt down through the hologram.

His heart gave a weak beat and she growled, watching the monitor and hoping it continued. "Damn, again!" She watched the monitor as she worked, willing it to move from the flat line. She had never lost a patient, and she'd be damned if she was going to start today, especially after hours of work. "Come on… don't you give up on me… please…" The crash panel flashed as once more a jolt was sent through it down into the man's chest.

_Wake up, my child!_

**Ta-thump. Ta-thump.**

Sarah turned the crash panel off and pulls it away, handing it to a nurse. She then picks up her tools and sighs fully, returning to her work. Once finished, she pulled away from the man's chest and waited for everything else to finish up before slowly laser sealing the man's chest closed. Once finished, she pulled her gloves off, then placed her hand against the man's cheek and smiled. "Gave me quite a scare there… thanks for sticking around."

Doctor Crowler chuckled, looking up from the final stitching he was putting in the man's hand. "You get a little too attached sometimes Sarah." He let out a sigh. "This one's lucky to have a doctor like you around." He smirked. "I'm no heart surgeon, but he looked like Swiss cheese."

Sarah smiles, "He's lucky you're here too John And… well we all do what we're best at." She turned to the head nurse in the room. "I'm on double today, let me know if his condition changes…"

Sarah left the room, leaving the patient in the capable hands of the other doctor and nurses who surrounded him. She takes the stairs back to her office, feeling the need to work off the last of her adrenaline from the surgery. Her mind fuzzes over a little as she walks and she feels the rumbling in her stomach reminding her about that stale bagel she'd left behind.

She pushes into her office and slumps into her chair, looking at the mug of now-cold coffee. The liquid gave a defiant little swirl as she pushed the mug away, resting on one hand. The surgery patient's face drifted along in her mind as she relaxed a little, and she couldn't help feel like there was something familiar about the man… like a dream she'd had…

She shakes her head and sighs, picking up her meager meal and eating while she had the chance, her thoughts focusing only on how she was going to get a fresh mug of coffee… without running into that orderly who seemed to have a crush on her.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Pieces of the Labyrinth finally dissolve into the void and the cries of the Goblins who once lived it fell silent. The world seemed to fade into nothingness, until a dusting of glitter fills the darkness and a spark of light illuminates the air. A humanoid form shimmers, then appears as the glitter expands, bringing back to life the Labyrinth that once resided in the prison void that the Goblins had been cast into. Each was returned to its rightful place, its home within the protecting walls of the Underground.

In the center of this new Labyrinth, as the first breath of a new life is taken, a pair of mismatched eyes open to face the dawn of the New Underground. Magic restored to reign once more.


End file.
